Thursday 19 February 2015

8 Spoke Alloy Wheel Colour Change

Around a week after dropping my (new) 8 spoke R500 wheels into the guys at Mint Alloys, I got a call to say they were ready... I asked the guys there to take a few pictures of the process, so you could see what's involved in repainting alloy wheels to a factory standard.

So the process went like this...
I dropped the wheels off and chose a colour... Initially I thought the factory finished anthracite colour from Caterham would give me a good contrast with the orange rim, but once I had the full set I instantly knew they were too light.  So when at Mint alloys I chose a dark grey colour with a bit of a silver metallic flake in, called... well I'll get onto the colour name in a bit...
Here are the wheels with the colour swatch to show the difference in colour that would be achieved.
Caterham R500 8 spoke 13" wheels in factory finish anthracite grey.
Caterham R500 8 spoke 13" wheels in factory finish anthracite grey.
Now onto the wheel refurbishment process
The wheel gets chemically stripped for roughly a couple of hours and ends up looking like this:-
Chemically stripped Caterham R500 8 spoke wheel.
Chemically stripped Caterham R500 8 spoke wheel.
After chemical stripping, the wheels are cleaned down and dried, then checked for any kerb damage (as mine were new wheels and weren't damaged this checking part was unnecessary)

Any light kerb damage would be removed using hand tools, but for the larger deeper damage in some instances a weld will be added proud of the wheel rim then the wheel would be re-profiled accordingly.

The wheel then goes into the blast cabinet for media blasting using an ally oxide for cleaning and keying to allow the powder coat to adhere properly.
Wheel after media blasting.
Wheel after media blasting.
After the media blasting process is complete, the wheels are then blown down using an air line to remove any residual media used in the blasting process.

The wheels then go into the clean room where the guys at mint allows apply a coat of an anti corrosive product to the naked wheel to eliminate potential future corrosion problems.  The wheel is then placed in the oven and runs through a bake known as a de-gas cycle at a temperature of 200c for approximately 20-25 minutes.
My wheels with what looks like a set of 997 turbo wheels in the oven in the 'degassing cycle'
My wheels with what looks like a set of 997 turbo wheels in the oven in the 'degassing cycle'
Once the wheels have been de-gassed and whilst they're still warm, a coat of powder coat primer is applied which in my case was black.
Wheels powder coated in black.
Wheels powder coated in black.
The wheel is then placed back in the oven for a green cure which assists with the cross adhesion of the paints later in the process.  Once the wheels have gone through the green cure process the wheels are pulled out of the oven and are allowed to cool slightly where the team at Mint Alloys then apply a wet coat of chosen colour, in my instance this is annoyingly called 'Skoda glitter black' as apposed to 'Jaguar glitter black' which is the same colour... Anyway I now have Skoda on my Caterham R500 which I guess will make the fastest Skoda wheel painted car around?
Wheel painted with Skoda glitter black
Wheel painted with Skoda glitter black
Once the wheels have been painted they are allowed to 'flash off' which means the paint is allowed to semi dry.  Once the wheels have cooled sufficiently the guys at Mint Alloys apply a powder lacquer coat (which appears white before baking) and then the wheels are put back in the oven for the final heat cycle for around 20 minutes.
Wheels with Powder Lacquer coat before final baking.
Wheels with Powder Lacquer coat before final baking.
And after the final bake the wheels are is finished. The final picture of the alloys is below, and I am very happy with them.  They are a superb dark grey colour with a small bit of metallic flake in them to bling them up a little.  The only real problem is the 'Skoda' part of the colour name!  I guess from now on I'll refer to the colour as 'Jaguar glitter black'

Having used Mint Alloys a number of times in the past, I was once again left very happy with the end result.  They really do a good job, and with all the equipment they have, they make your wheels like new again.  A link to their site is here http://www.mintalloys.com and it's best to speak with Andy (who loves Caterhams and used to race in the Academy in 2002!) or his business partner Keith.

On the way back from Mint Alloys I dropped the wheels off to Dave at Daytona Coachworx who will be painting the wheel rim over the next three or four weeks.  We discussed where the rim should be masked to and how large the orange rim will be.  After looking at some pictures online we decided to go right around the curved section of the rim and a sample mask was laid onto the wheel.
New wheels with a sample mask laid onto rim.
New wheels with a sample mask laid onto rim.
And the final piece of the puzzle was the get a RAL colour to match the decals on the car.  I didn't have a RAL chart so ordered one off eBay.  It arrived this morning and I offered up the RAL chart to the decals on the bonnet and it looks like RAL 2004 is the colour the rims will be painted in.
Mactac Semi Flourescent orange decals on Caterham R500 match RAL 2004 colour code.
Mactac Semi Flourescent orange decals on Caterham R500 match RAL 2004 colour code.
So the next stage will be to let Dave do his work and then collect the wheels from him in three to four weeks.  Then get the AVON ZZR's fitted, paint the tyre wall and this project will be finished.

Thursday 12 February 2015

More tyre and new wheel updates

Following on from my previous post I seem to have accumulated a reasonable collection of rubber... 

My growing stack of fresh rubber - Avon ZZr's and CR500's
My growing stack of fresh rubber - Avon ZZr's and CR500's
A brand new set of Avon ZZR's that I'm dying to try out, and some new rear CR500's as having covered around 2,600 miles my existing rears are very much on their last few microns of tread... I'm not too sure having this many tyres laying around is a normal behaviour, but I'm guessing it is with Caterham ownership... and with any luck by the end of the year a large proportion of this rubber (if not all of it) will be heavily embedded in some tarmac either in the UK, France or maybe even further afield!

The poll results (as they stand right now)
The results to the poll for what colour wheel option I should go for are as follows:-

Current Poll Results.
Current Poll Results.
Gloss orange is the winner with 49 votes, Matte Black with Orange rim came in second with 45 votes and the standard anthracite was the least favourite option with 27 votes.

Having considered the results (and thanks for all your votes by the way) I've also taken into account the fact that a couple of my mates have pumped in some fictitious votes to get the gloss orange to win... I'm declaring my original favourite the Matte Black with Orange rim the overall winner.

Organising the wheel repainting
So onto getting the wheels painted up.  I ended up ordering a set of front wheels from Demon Tweeks a couple of days ago, as the second hand set I was going to get from Steff (on Blatchat) may not have been up to standard and Caterham didn't have any stock.  Nevertheless, the front wheels arrived yesterday.

I used a local company (Mint Alloys) to refurbish some diamond cut alloys I owned many years ago and they done a really good job... So I decided to contact them to see if they could repaint these new wheels and paint the orange rim.  They said they weren't geared up for getting a good finish on the rim, but would be happy to assist with the new colour I was looking to achieve.  I'm not entirely sure the Matte black will be as good as I initially hoped, so have decided on a very dark grey instead... I daren't mention the name of the colour code of the grey (for reasons I'll make clear in the future).. but decided to make a final mock up last night of what I'm trying to achieve to ensure 100% before I committed - so here is what it 'should' look like:-

My Caterham R500 with photoshopped wheel and tyre mock-up
My Caterham R500 with photoshopped wheel and tyre mock-up
I can't quite get the right orange on the photoshop image, but it'll be the same as the orange in the stripe on the bodywork.  I've also whitened the AVON wording on the tyrewalls too.

Knowing that mint alloys won't be painting the rims, I contacted Dave at Daytona Coachworx - the chap that finished off the carbon headlights (that I've still to fit) and he said he'd happily paint the wheel rims for me provided I gave him the colour code that I wanted.

So earlier today I dropped the wheels off at mint alloys and they said they should be finished in a couple of days.  Below is a picture of the wheels with the new colour swatch offered up against the old (which are new) 'factory anthracite' coloured wheels - it doesn't look much of a difference in the picture, but they'll be much darker - close to black once they're finished.

Anthracite Caterham R500 8 spoke alloy wheels with new colour swatch offered up against them.
Anthracite Caterham R500 8 spoke alloy wheels with new colour swatch offered up against them.
And when finished they should look something like this:-
New colour for the wheels
New colour for the wheels

I'm already looking forward to getting them back, seeing what they look like, then getting them straight over to Dave at Daytona Coachworx so he can get busy painting the rims.